It is known that electrical power can be harvested from wind energy using wind turbines. Control of the turbine blade pitch is often utilized for creating optimum turbine loading conditions in order to harvest the wind energy with the highest possible efficiently, but control of the turbine blade pitch may also be required in emergencies to bring the turbine rotor to a safe condition of nearly zero rotational speed. It may be necessary to modify the blade pitch in certain circumstances when no grid power is available. For example, the blades may not be pitched at an optimum or safe angle during a power grid outage. Therefore, a battery system may be utilized to provide emergency backup power to the turbine blade pitch control system and the blade pitch motors.
An emergency backup pitch control system may include components such as batteries, controllers, blade pitch modules, blade pitch motors, accelerometers, blade pitch encoders, gears, shafts, and lubrication systems. These components can be tested periodically to determine whether the emergency backup pitch control system is able to perform its intended function during a power outage. However, testing conditions for the backup pitch control system are highly dependent upon the orientation of the rotor blades. Therefore, a need remains for improved systems and methods for testing wind turbine pitch control systems.